E-shopping spikes in US holiday season

TERMS AND AGREEMENTS:：While revenue from online shopping has gone up, retailers may also face higher costs in terms of shipping a larger number of packages to customers

Reuters, CHICAGO and SAN FRANCISCO

Mon, Nov 26, 2012 - Page 15

Online shopping in the US has grown sharply so far this holiday shopping season after retailers pushed out a slew of mobile and Internet deals that lured consumers before Cyber Monday today, traditionally the biggest day for e-commerce in the US.

While it remains to be seen if the gains over Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday can be sustained, the latest estimates show shoppers scooping up early special offers via their smartphones and tablets the way they used to hunt for bargains in brick-and-mortar stores.

Online sales increased 17.4 percent on Thanksgiving and 20.7 percent on Black Friday compared with last year, according to IBM Smarter Commerce, a unit of International Business Machines Corp that analyzes transactions from 500 US retailers.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, had traditionally been the start to the holiday season for stores. This year, retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp made their biggest push ever with special offers during the holiday itself.

“What we don’t know is whether this is a zero-sum game or whether there is some benefit to retailers by broadening the holiday shopping window,” Best said. “There is risk that real growth in retail for the entire holiday may be overestimated based on these early numbers.”